


i endure

by fracturedvaels



Series: tumblr prompts [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 17:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4188651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fracturedvaels/pseuds/fracturedvaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver gets captured by Goran, for use as bait. Short, disjointed angst to fluff. Compaion fic to "easy as always easy" and "sweetness on our tongues;"</p>
            </blockquote>





	i endure

**Author's Note:**

> [Another tumblr ficlet](http://princetheirin.tumblr.com/post/121715746407/for-nbmercutio-cos-i-saw-ur-tags-speaking-of). As always: this has no basis, and is more a writing scrap than a fic, and one day I may come back to it.

Sebastian wants to get married one day. Carver jokes about it, often; _make you good and honest_ , he says, as though that matters. Carver hated the phrase _make a honest man out of you_. He hated the idea of marriage; it felt too much like ownership. After all they’d fought for, all they’d done to break free of their respective prisons, he couldn’t do that to Sebastian.

But it was what Sebastian wanted. Or what he said he wanted. Maybe he was just teasing; it was hard to tell some days, with him.

But he’d give Carver a look. Sad and longing. And sometimes he’d touch his fingertips to the base of his ring finger, move them like he was twisting a wedding band. Always when Carver couldn’t see.

_One day_ , Carver promises, because promises are all he has now aside from Sebastian and the Wardens. _I’ll make you a Hawke, good and proper._

They come in waves and waves, and they take down everyone he’s with. He doesn’t stop fighting till he sees them all fall; Marianna and Alura and Clove and Fris. When Pasc drops, Carver knows it’s over, but he doesn’t stop fighting; he won’t let them drop him without taking triple the team they just felled.

But the end doesn’t come. Someone hits him with a spell – it sends horrific pain through him and leaves him crippled and curled up on the field, gasping and retching and aching. He thinks this is it, this is the end; and he thinks of home, a place somewhere deep in his love’s chest, and he feels a clawing hateful misery take him shortly before the darkness does.

And then he wakes up. In a dungeon. In a tunic and roughspun pants and they took his blasted shoes. Of course they would.

And they keep him there. For days. For weeks. They do terrible things, unspeakable things; they flood him with fire and lightening and poisons. They force him to kneel and demand he swear fealty to a man he’d rather see beheaded.

“I’m a _Hawke_ ,” he spits blood at the false Prince’s feet. “We’re a little harder to kill. And a _lot_ harder to break.”

“When my cousin gets here,” Goran tells him with a tone that’s as dismissive as it is annoyed, “he will be mine, and you will die. Unless you – ”

“Comply, yes, yes, bugger and shit. I heard you the first ten times.” Carver feels a boot at his back, between his shoulders, and struggles to stay up on his knees. He won’t be pressed into the dirt again. “But I eagerly await the day he comes.”

“There will be no rescue.” Goran quirks a brow. “Surely you must know this.”

Carver thinks to answer. But he laughs, first, drops his head and lets powerful, body-shaking laughter take over. “Sebastian must be a special one. Because they _sure_ make them stupid in Starkhaven,” he wheezes. And he has another quip on his tongue, but the boot shoves him down, and he’s winded by the fall.

* * *

_Maker_ , he thinks one day, curled up after being kicked by so many shoes he thought he was a ball, _I promise. I’ll take him. I’ll make it honest. Ring and everything. Maker, if I survive this_ -

* * *

They make him keep his nose painted. A swipe of blood, that they take from him. “Contrasts your pretty eyes,” Goran says during one session. Carver wonders if he’s doing it to remind himself of his prize: the lost Prince’s lover, the Champion’s younger brother.

But he’s more than that. A lure, sure; bait for two very important people. Carver concedes to that. But he is more; he does not stop being his own person simply because of who the people he is related to or loves are.

But he’s not the only one with a swipe of blood across his nose.

* * *

And he’s not as clever, or as quick; he’s never been good with a bow, and he can’t call down fire to rain upon any regular bastard.

But Garrett is quick. And Sebastian is clever. And Sebastian is good with a bow, and Garrett can call down fire to rain upon bastards both regular and royal; and it appears he doesn’t just have the Hawke last name, or the blood swipe, but also the Hawke _luck_.

Luck, if it can be called that, because he’s missing three back teeth and he can’t stand up on his own. His stomach has caved in and he’s littered with bruises – a painting, clearly, a portrait of his own weakness. He tries not to wince to hard when he leans heavily in Sebastian’s arms.

“You’d be a sight for sore eyes,” he jokes, “if I could bloody see down here.”

“Shut up,” Sebastian says, angry, and there’s tears in his voice. “Shut up before I kill you myself. You idiot. You _fool_.”

“I’m fine,” Carver tells him, and he’d kiss him if he could. He settles for someone else pulling him away, sitting him down; he settles for a glance in the dark and sees Sebastian outlined by distant torches. Someone finally lights a fire, and though it’s still dim it hurts to look; Carver has to squint as he beckons Sebastian to kneel. “M'ere,” he says, extending a hand.

Sebastian does down easily, leans forward. He looks tired, so dreadfully tired. “About time you showed up,” Carver says, and he runs his thumb down smears of blood on his arm, where he was hit not three hours before. “I’d like to have died down here.”

“You’re not dying,” Sebastian replies fiercely. “Not in Goran’s sodding muck pit.”

“Language. I’m rubbing off on you.” Carver gives him a weak grin and reaches out, cupping his jaw with one hand. Before Sebastian can lean into the touch, he rubs his bloodied thumb across Sebastian’s face. “There. Now you’re a Hawke. Good and proper.”

“Bastard,” Sebastian reaches up to scrub his eyes, but stops, realizing he would ruin what Carver just did.

“Glad we both know it.” Sebastian doesn’t kiss him on the mouth – Carver wants him to, if only a small peck, if only to know he’s real – but he takes Carver’s hand and kisses his bloodied fingertips and then he stands, and he pulls an arrow free, and Carver knows he’s going to stop Goran’s door down.

_Do me proud_ , he thinks as he lets the healers work on him. He’s not dying here. Not today. He’s got a promise to keep.


End file.
